The article discusses how a lack of capital in the UK, caused by oil price shocks and slow investment growth, may have led to higher unemployment rates. The study suggests that workers care about their position in the wage hierarchy, leading to wages adjusting differently based on the unemployment rate. The researchers used data from 1966 to 1994 to test their hypotheses and found that capital shortages and asymmetries in wage adjustments could be contributing to long-term unemployment in the UK.